let the pretty bleed out
by audi katia
Summary: Artemis has never seemed to match that supernatural grace with the power of her hands. They like to clutch and keep and hold too much, everything in her life covered in bruises from clutching too hard. ::Vampire AU::mild gore::


_**Notes**: This was prompted by my friend delirious-daydreamer on tumblr and I am so grateful! I've been in a major writing slump lately and this was a great way to stretch my writing muscles a little more. This is my first attempt at horror, so I hope it is sufficiently creepy and interesting. Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

Artemis doesn't remember the bite, but she remembers waking up.

Whatever her life before might have been, her reality is now grounded with bloody roots.

Sometimes she remembers a red door, the warmth of _home_ deep in her bones. Sometimes she remembers a mother, sick and strict beside her. Sometimes she catches a whiff of a spice long forgotten and remembers what it meant to be hungry for something other than blood.

But these are fleeting memories, something beautiful and lost.

* * *

Her Blood Sister is kinder than her Blood Father, though _kind_ is not the right word for how she treats Artemis. After all, cats who play with their food are not kind for letting creatures live those last few minutes.

But her Blood Sister teaches her all the same. Teaches her how to stalk prey, how to discern healthy blood from sickly blood, how to move through shadows.

"Why me?" Artemis asks once, absently touching the scars on her neck.

Jade stares at her for a long time before answering.

"You looked strong."

* * *

Her Blood Father tells her the vampires of old lived in castles, with dreary luxury and rolling hills of land around them.

Artemis looks around the condemned building they live in. She looks out the cracked window at the devastated Gotham around them.

It's not the same, but she's smart enough not to say anything.

* * *

"It doesn't have to be like this," Jade tells her.

Artemis doesn't understand until suddenly a wall appears and she is no longer under her Blood Father's watchful leer.

"We have more power than you think."

* * *

Artemis practices manipulating her surroundings. She smears the dust on the floor to make uneven patterns on the concrete. She sends gusts of winds that brush Jade's hair off her shoulders until she turns with a hiss and bares her teeth long and sharp at Artemis.

And when she feels stronger, she removes the shattered glass from the window near the corner she has claimed as her own. Despite the chill of her skin, the winter wind is colder still and she imagines that if she still had breath she could see it billow out from her chest in cloudy forms.

* * *

Her Blood Father wants to expand their clan. He wants a League of Shadows.

The leader of their clan, he is respected. Heads nod around them in silent agreement.

Artemis is reluctant to kill. Beside her, she can feel Jade tense and release.

That night the wall disappears between the Sisters and they share a single space, united in their hesitation and fear.

* * *

She touches the scars on her neck, but she does not remember the bite.

She wonders if it hurt.

* * *

Artemis develops a taste for birds.

Jade, always partial to cats, teases her for it. Mimics her with arms outstretched trying to catch the flying snacks.

_Childish_.

But it's not like that at all, not really. The taste isn't better than cat or fish or, she shudders, human. But she likes the feel of the wings beating madly under her grip, the power that comes from knowing she has captured it, caught it, caged it.

She's trapped it, kept it. It's hers. It's delicious.

* * *

She keeps feathers from her favorite birds. And when that's not enough, she finds butterflies and rips off their wings.

"Can you even taste the blood?" Jade asks, eyeing with boredom the torn wings laying haphazardly on the concrete floor of their shared space.

Artemis shrugs, a bad habit she's learned from their newest clan member, Cameron.

"It's not about the taste," she tries to explain. It's the experience. It's pinning it down, splitting it open, letting the pretty bleed out. It's stunning, careless and wonderful and pure. It's the power she gets from ripping the wings off and cupping the twitching body in her hand. It's caught, hers forever.

Across the room, her Blood Father can hear her. Can watch her pin them to the crumbling wall.

* * *

Her Blood Father is terrifying up close. All veins and rage and sparks in his eyes. Artemis locks herself away, wondering how scared she must have been before the bite.

He wants her to add to the clan. The _or else_ hangs threateningly in the air before them.

She resolves then, she won't scare whoever she has to bite.

* * *

Freedom is so hard for Artemis.

She didn't chose this life, didn't chose this condemned building, didn't chose this family.

But the clan speaks of the freedom in their abilities, their speed and agility and gracefulness. Their ability to manipulate their surroundings. Their power in their jaws.

Artemis has never seemed to match that supernatural grace with the power of her hands. They like to clutch and keep and hold too much, everything in her life covered in bruises from clutching too hard.

* * *

When she first sees him, he's running.

Maybe that's why she is drawn to him. He is so fast, so out of her reach. Like the birds flying above her head.

He looks so free, he looks so _strong_. She wants him.

* * *

The sun is just barely rising when Jade comes back from her hunt and throws a crow at her feet.

"Here," she says needlessly. "For you."

It's a uncharacteristic act of kindness, but Artemis says nothing. She knows she hasn't been herself lately, knows she has been scattered and lost.

So she nods wordlessly to her Sister before biting down on the dead bird, blood seeping into her mouth.

Artemis sighs breathlessly. It doesn't taste the same if she doesn't capture it herself.

* * *

They can't fly, not really. They can't transform into bats or swoop down on their prey in any literal sense. They don't sleep so she can't even dream of flying. She just exists, dropping her collected feathers as they fall whimsically in the dead air of the condemned building.

* * *

When he first sees her step out of the shadows, it catches him off guard and he falls flat on his face. He is as ungraceful as she feels and that relief makes her laugh.

"Who are you?" he spits out, cautious and defensive. His defensiveness reminds her of Jade, but his voice is too young, too unguarded. It catches in his throat and she wonders if it burns to sound so raw all the time.

He's still staring at her, pale skin covered in a sheen of sweat that glows under the city night lights. He looks delicious.

She grins and the moonlight glints off her teeth.

"Artemis."

"Wally," he answers warily. She watches him stare at her teeth for just a second too long.

_Wally_. He is even more beautiful up close.

* * *

They meet every night for a week.

He is fast and smart and strong, and when he laughs, she knows it is a freedom she will never be able to capture.

* * *

Torn wings lay before her and she is lost in her thoughts of beautiful wings and beautiful boys as she pins the wings to her wall. Artemis does not sense Cameron beside her until he is gripping her arms with his cold fingers.

"He won't fit in our clan," he bites at her, eyes red with power and jealousy.

She throws him off her, lets her teeth bare longer and sharper and meaner than he has ever seen. He shudders involuntarily at the sight, and beside her, Jade crouches alert and cat-like, ready to attack.

"He is mine," she swears, voice low and dark and dangerous.

Something in the foundation of the building cracks. No one moves for a long time.

* * *

The whole clan saw what happened. They know she plans to expand it.

She tells her Blood Father nothing.

She tells Jade everything.

* * *

She wants to tell Wally everything.

They meet in the city, under the streetlight she had introduced herself at because she didn't want him to think she was afraid of the light. She snags at his elbow, course fabric of his coat caught up in her bony fingers.

He stares at her unblinkingly, shattered green in the otherwise stillness of the night, waiting for her to speak.

But she's terrified of losing him and so Artemis doesn't say a word.

"Where is everyone?" he says suddenly, eyes breaking away to look around the street. They stand alone in the flickering streetlight, no people for miles.

* * *

"There's no point to talking to him now," Jade reminds her idly.

Artemis ignores her in favor of manipulating their tiny corner to seem a little larger. She wants Wally to have a space of his own when he gets here.

"You don't remember what happened to you before the bite. I don't remember. No one remembers. He won't remember how he feels. Just bite him and get it over with."

Artemis doesn't care. This is important to her.

* * *

They have all the time in the world, an eternity she has not yet revealed to him. But when she talks, she speaks without preamble and lets the words fall from her lips sharp and quick and to the point.

"Why do you run?"

Wally shrugs, the roll of his shoulders catching her eye as she watches the move of his muscles beneath his skin. He seems to struggle with his words, staring down at his knee as he stretches out his leg.

"I just like it. I mean, I hate running up hills, but I like running in general."

Artemis tells him with a wordless, pointed look that his response isn't enough.

He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his sweaty face and hair, red tufts sticking out between his pale fingers.

"It gets you somewhere. It's like, your body is moving you from one place to another. And you accomplished that. Not a car or a bike, but you. You did it. And you feel it every step of the way. You feel it the next day and maybe the day after that and you feel it when you run and you feel it all the time. And I love that feeling. But nothing beats that feeling when you don't feel it at all. I know that doesn't make any sense, but sometimes when you really get into running, you feel weightless and strong and like there is nothing at all holding you back. You feel unstoppable and powerful and it's a feeling that no one can take away from you. I worked hard for that feeling. It wasn't given to me, I earned it. I worked for it. It's a feeling that is all mine."

His heart rate picks up with his enthusiasm, the scent of his blood pungent and nearly palpable against her tongue. She licks her lips.

Then he shakes his head, mussing his hair up further. He throws her a grin that he obviously means for her to interpret as rakish and gives an exaggerated show of his calves.

"Plus, the ladies dig the muscles."

She smiles with too many teeth, and if it makes him nervous, he doesn't show it.

* * *

He invites her on his midday run, but she declines. Wally makes a noise like maybe he wants to ask why she is only ever around in the evening, but his eyes cloud over like he just suddenly forgot his train of thought.

So they run at night.

"Weird," he gasps between breaths as they race through the urban terrain, "I thought there was a hill here."

* * *

They take a break from their run. He says it's for her benefit, but she can see him bent over, staring at his knees when he thinks she's not watching. She allows him this bit of humanity, generous in a way she isn't usually.

"Hey, check it out," he calls out to her, bringing her focus back to him.

Outstretched in his freckled hand are three feathers, two dusty gray and a third speckled in creams and browns. They are whole and unbroken in his light grip and he gives them to her, standing close to her rigid form.

"Souvenir."

She shivers as his breath brushes the contours of her cheek, unused to such human commodities, and stares down at the feathers in her hands. Artemis closes her fingers around them, careful to mimic his touch so they remain unbroken.

* * *

Wally isn't worn down. She doesn't want him to be. She doesn't want him to lose this fire. But she can see cracks in his strength and she knows that if she pushes a little harder, tugs and grabs and pulls, she can have him. She can touch and take and have him forever.

* * *

"Catch me," he orders impulsively, childishly.

She says nothing, but leaps after him all the same.

* * *

She doesn't promise it won't hurt because she doesn't know if she'd be lying or not.

"Come here," Artemis whispers, her cold fingers curling around his to bring him closer.

He stands before her, pausing a fraction of a second, and at first she is gripped with fear that he is reevaluating this moment, but instead he is just staring at her. His eyes sear over her face and she feels a heat in her belly she thought she had forgotten.

Her lips catch his and he is sighing into her mouth.

Then she pulls away and sinks her teeth into his neck. His blood tastes like freedom and power and beauty, like lightning and speed and laughter. He tastes the way she always wanted the butterflies to taste, his overwhelming flavor blotting out his screams and lingering on her tongue long after his heart stops beating.

* * *

Artemis doesn't remember how long she was dead before she woke up, but Wally is dead for days.

When he finally opens his eyes, they are the same green she remembers.

"Who are you?" he asks in a raw voice.

She grins.

* * *

Jade lingers in the background as their Blood Father wordlessly appraises Wally. She watches the drag of his eye over Wally's muscles, his sculpted form, his bright expression, his quick eye.

_He's strong_, she wants to yell, but instead she keeps the words locked inside.

"You're responsible for him," is all her Blood Father says before he vanishes.

Jade still lingers.

* * *

Wally takes to the bite in a way she envies. He is stronger with this change, more curious, more vibrant than she ever remembers being.

She takes him on his first hunt and he chases after rabbits the way she reaches for birds. Fresh blood drips down his chin, smeared around his face and caught in the crook of his smile.

"Did I choose this?" he wonders, licking his bloody lips. He doesn't wait for her to answer, maybe doesn't want to know the real answer. "This is the best decision I ever made in my life."

* * *

The corner is theirs now, Jade has left.

Artemis misses her presence, but Wally fills the space in a way no one else ever can. He fits where the feathers cannot and he stays where the wings crumble and fall. It's there that he lays beside her, cold forms twisted together under the glass-less windows just barely letting in the daylight.

"What do humans taste like?"

He stirs beside her, voice broken in equal parts scared and curious and she knows that feeling too well.

"You don't want to eat them," she informs him, almost strictly. He takes her words with a silent nod and it's quiet for a long time before she continues, swallowing down around the lie."It's okay. I didn't want to, either."

_Forget_, she thinks. And he does.

* * *

She's waiting for him when he steps through the door.

"You shouldn't trust Cameron."

"I don't," Wally promises, an easy grin on his pale face.

He shuts the door behind him, dust falling from the ceiling onto his shoulders. It's gone before he can brush it away.

"I thought maybe he was trying to lead me into trouble," he explains, leaning back against the wall with an ease Artemis covets. "He wanted me to look at something at the end of the hall. But all it led to was this door."

He stops for a second, looking over his shoulder at the door. His expression shades, eyes cast down suspiciously. Artemis knows that look and swoops over to him, arms around his shoulders pulling him to her.

"I don't remember seeing this door before," he murmurs, even as his hands find their place on her waist. "It's weird that the door led to our floor."

"Does it?" Artemis feigns curiosity, running her long fingers through the tangle of his hair. "Huh, I never thought about it before."

Contentedly, his eyes slide shut and the door disappears with that tiny movement. His forehead drops to her shoulder, one hand lazily trailing along her ribcage as the walls fade away. She can feel the flutter of eyelashes against the scars on her neck and he pulls away to look at the growing darkness around them.

"How did we get here?" he wonders.

"Does it matter?"

"No, I guess not."

Any other words he has are caught in her mouth as she kisses him deep.

* * *

"I think I'm losing my mind," he says without pause. He looks at her evenly as they run down the streets, no need to gasp for breath or stop because of a racing heart.

"The bite doesn't do that," she promises.

Then she runs away, bolting ahead just out of his reach. She can hear a happy growl replace his uncertainty and she lets out a peal of laughter she can't remember letting loose ever before. It spears him on, pushes him forward, until she can feel the quick slash of his fingers against her back as he tries to pull her to him.

She shrieks and he laughs and it's that exact moment he catches her. She's clutched to his chest, pulled down to the ground with him. He pins her beneath him and she feels the rough asphalt under her back, tiny rocks tangled into her hair.

His hands find hers, and he squeezes his fingers against her wrist where she knows her pulse once raced.

"I can't remember anything," he chokes out, grip tighter and tighter.

"Shh," she whispers, "shh."

She whispers it over and over until the sky above them turns to concrete and he's pinning her to the nest they've made in the shithole building they call home.

_Shh. Shh_.

* * *

"Did I have a family?"

"Here's a rabbit," Artemis gives him one that appears beside her.

Wally sniffs at it once, twice, then rips his too-sharp teeth into the matted fur. She doesn't look away as he spits it out, bloodied mass a stark contrast on the dusty floors.

Throwing the rabbit corpse away, he looks down at their racing feet.

"When did we start running?" he asks, perplexed. He stops so suddenly, his presence suddenly missing beside her.

"Aren't you happy here?" She wants to rip out her hair.

"I'm frightened here," he shouts back. He looks scared, but doesn't look away from her. "I don't know why."

She waits until his arms are reaching out to hers and she falls into them like an anchor, keeping him there. He sighs against her neck and she feels his lips along the raised scars on her neck. She trails her fingers over his own scars, tiny white marks nearly hidden among his freckles.

He shivers against her touch and leans them both back against the wall, knocking feathers from where she pinned them so long ago.

"Weren't we outside a moment ago?"

"It's cold outside."

"I don't feel the cold anymore, Artemis."

She can feel his frustration like another body in the room. It lives with them now, caught up in this same concrete prison she's stuck in.

"Stay here with me," she pleads. She can't remember ever begging before.

She stares at him until he forgets. She kisses him until he can't remember why he ever considered leaving.

* * *

The doors disappear the next night. Jade looks on, but says nothing. Artemis ignores her gaze. They don't need the doors. No one needs the doors.

* * *

He is hers. She can keep him forever.

* * *

_Please review._


End file.
